Seclusion
by The Crone's Daughter
Summary: Sickness kills off humans one by one, leaving the best dectectives in the world trapped underground waiting for Death to disappear.


Sorry for the long wait everyone. I hope you didn't get too bored. I've been working hard on all the other stories you love and hope to have them done by Christmass. The story used is Poe's "Masque of the Red Death". I've been thinking of doing more chpaters of this but tell what you think, okay?

I hope you enjoy the story,

-Pen.

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_The tomb opened with a loud crack, vile air floated out to the explorers as they went inside. Down, down they walked, sweat staining their soft plastic clothes as the underground heat rose in degrees with each step. The leader, a tall fellow of sorts, took a laser to the already corroded metal of the site, eyes beady as the large sheet of metal fell away into darkness. _

"_Well now," the leader smirked as he pocketed his tool, "I didn't think it would _this _easy to break into this place." He winked at your female companion and cocked his head to the opening, "What do you think?"_

_You chuckled as the female pushed past him with a roll of her eyes and jumped down into the thick blackness, leaving the both of you alone in the heat. He shoved past you to go down next, earning himself a scowl of utter distaste from you. You follow after them, blinking back tears as the female flicked on the lights from a wall. You gaze in wonder as twenty-seven white doors surround you in the round room, each with a letter from the English alphabet except for the last that stood open; lights and music floated from the crack._

"_Good job Hazel," you say to her, blushing when her cobalt eyes gleamed at you with kindness._

"_You're not bad yourself Tanner," Hazel replied. _

_Brax, the leader, snorted as he strode to the unmarked door, "Well then _Tanner_, why don't you observe the rooms up here while Hazel and I take a look here?" Hazel was about to protest but you beat her to it, voice full of well-disguised hate, "Sure Brax. Whatever you say _sir_!" "Atta-boy!" Brax smiled at you and waved a hand at Hazel, "Come on!"_

_Hazel and you share a look as you begin to walk towards the first door, it was one full of laughter and hate for Brax. You watch Hazel go as she walked down the stairs to the lower level below, oil beginning to boil as Brax's arrogant voice glided up to you as he told a stupid joke._

_But the feeling passed. You weren't like one of those animals in the twenty-first century that would tear up everything in sight just for a girl. You were created from metals and plastic, a body of might and reason that came forth from the destruction of man over a hundred years ago._

_The air was thick in the first room; you ran a hand on the bedspread that seemed to be untouched by time. You toured the rest of the rooms, staring from Z and up to C, since they were all interconnected, noting how nothing graced the floors and walls._

_Weren't humans supposed to be the most expressive creatures of their time? Where were the music posters and novels that your information pack in your wrist scanner taught you about when you placed it under your skin last night before you recharged?_

_The last room stood before you but for some reason you didn't enter. A feeling of –SEARCHING- fear filled your body as you stood before it. You shuddered as you grasped the cold doorknob, blinking in surprise as the scent of something other than nothing graced your air sensors. _

_You stepped inside a messy room where books and papers littered the floor, books lay broken and scattered on a jumbled bed. Black smears of dried blood on the wall flaked away with a brush of your fingertips._

_Now this place, this room, it had _life._ You nearly skipped over to the desk in the corner where a stack of neat papers laid, all written full to the margins in spidery handwriting. You took a seat on the bed as you began to read, devouring each word that popped out to you on the crisp white sheets of dead plants._

These may be the last words I shall ever write.

The last anyone shall write.

Sickness had engulfed the world, turning a sane man mad with just a drop of poisoned water. The preachers said that the end had come while skeptics blamed it on the environment or terrorists.

They say it doesn't take long for it to kill you, just a sip and forty-five minutes later you're dead. The first symptom is shaking, eyes rolling like glass marbles in greased sockets. Then blood forms like red dew on your skin, slowly dripping-

dripping-

drop by drop out of your body till you're as pale as the paper I've scribbled these words on. After that…

But Whammy had a plan, one that would save the human race after the plague died down. He sent the best of the orphanage down into an underground shelter with enough food to last us generations…

If we lasted that long that is.

There were twenty-six of us, the exact number of letters in the alphabet, in the large elevator that in a couple of minutes brought us to our new home. A calm, tinny voice above spoke about how we should be glad that we were chosen to be here, that we were the saviors of the human race.

I would rather be dead with the lucky hundred thousand who already caught the disease.

I stood close to A and D, both on the verge of mental breaks, giving them comfort with each bump and rattle the metal death trap made. Soon the elevator stopped and the doors opened to reveal a large circular room. The walls were a numb numbing white, with twenty-six doors with each of our letters lacquered in slick black on them.

They led to our rooms, which were all interconnected by a side door. _He _probably thought isolation to this degree would drive anyone mad.

Too bad we were all half-way there.

Our leader was Nexus – I called him Nick, especially in the dark of night in his room, a low gentle whisper of his name- a tall, brash blonde boy who only knew how to have fun.

I would have chosen A…but you know.

Nexus made sure were always smiling, whether by jokes or other forms of entertainment. But soon it was not enough; the horrors of above began to weigh upon our minds, erasing any trace of the laughter that was once there.

Nexus realized this and began to turn the lower floor of our prison into a funhouse, working well into the night at times. It was during our forth week that he revealed it to us, leading us down soft mauve stairs to the second floor.

He opened the door at the end of the staircase and smirked, his face taking a comical look as a bright blue light washed over it. "This, my friends," he said in a dramatic whisper, "is our getaway from hell." I laughed at that, loudly, as he led us through each of the rooms. There were seven of them in all, each with a different color scheme.

But before you entered each room, there was a corridor with a sharp turn leading to the door. Within this small space stood two large windows with smooth panels of stained glass installed in them depending on the color of the room before it. Behind each window lay a roaring fire, bringing the windows panes to life and casting the room in a brilliant hue.

The first room was blue, where soft indigo couches and beds lay invitingly for all. The second was sterile white with walls made of smoky glass. Clear syringes sat on cold, steel tables while large bottles of every drug possible lined the walls on shelves. Ashen pillows littered the floor so that when the drugs took their effect, the user had a nice place to lie down and enjoy their wonderland. The third room was green, an enormous kitchen that held over twenty verdant ovens and fifty jade refrigerators. I smirked as I watched C's eyes grow as round as dinner plates. The forth was gold and a ballroom, champagne chandeliers floated above us as we walked on the smooth, honey marble floor.

The fifth one was purple with computer and television screens attached to each wall. I turned a television on to see a bulldozer throw a pile of naked, rose colored bodies into a large fire. The flames greedily licked at the corpses and the smoke was as thick as snakes. We stopped and stared, hypnotized as thousands of humans were erased in a flash by the flick of the wrist.

But Nexus pulled the plug and wagged a finger at me with a wan smile. "Naughty, naughty Beyond; don't ruin the fun for the rest of us."

Everyone but A walked into the next room, he stared at the blank screen with hollow sapphire eyes and a horrified expression on his pale face.

"A?" I placed a hand on his shoulder, making him jump in surprise. He blinked a wooden dummy, slowly with loud clicks, before he turned to me with a fake smile on his face.

"Hello Beyond," he muttered dreamily while the smile grew, "it's a nice place isn't it."

"Are you okay?"

A's chuckle made the hair on my skin stand on end, eyes blue violet from the room, "Of course Beyond." I nodded and followed him into the orange room where gruesome skulls hung from blackened wires over head. The severed heads cast banshee glares at us with their Apache Tears irises that Nexus had installed into their sockets. Fire red cabinets took up all the space on the walls; Nexus opened one with a flourish to reveal ball gowns and costumes for any occasion.

The last room was absolute black, long drapes of black velvet covered the walls and shushed our footsteps when we went inside, but for some reason, the light was red.

Blood red.

The light made Nexus' thin face seem even gaunter, as if he spent most of his life in a crypt. "This here," he chuckled with wide open arms, purple eyes now a demonic red, "this here is the last room!"

A black grandfather clock stood, its hands made out of obsidian as it traveled slowly around burgundy Roman numerals. Each tick made us jump, the noise a dreadful sound to hear.

He strode over to a large portion of the floor where it was raised; black velvet graced whatever was under it and with a tug, he pulled the cloth away. We all uttered a gasp when twenty-six coffins appeared before us and lacquered black with only hint of white where our letters stood out boldly on the lids. The inside was lined with red silk that glittered in the crimson light. "This is where you can experience death-and live!" Nexus' voice had risen to a mad screech as he danced around the funeral boxes in joy.

I never knew there was someone crazier than me.

A wail of despair slipped past D's lips, grey eyes wide in horror as she gazed around the room. She crumbled to the floor as she exclaimed, "W-we're all goi-ing t-to die!" Nexus' smile faded as he heard this, he quickly ran over to her and embraced her in his arms.

"No-no!" He held D away from him and stared into her eyes, "we won't die. We have beat Death and her friends, Darkness and Decay. They won't find us, they will never find us. WE WILL NEVER DIE!" Nexus said this last part of all of us, a calm gleam in his eyes. "I want you all to join me in my party, to celebrate our victory over Death."

He leaned over to D and said, "I hope you, my dear, can spend a lot more time with me." The smile on D's face made my blood boil as she gazed at Nexus in wonder. I left in a hurry as grand music began to play in all the rooms, as the rest of them ran to the dressing room to get ready to dance or to the white room to forget the horrors that still plagued in the night.

I went to my room and slammed the door, hard. My bones screamed in pain as I pounded my fist into the cement walls over and over again until they were painted scarlet with my blood. I wish I could tear this disease out of my body, to beat it to a bloody pulp and watch it take its last breath of air.

I wish I were emotionless, cold and hardened, like _he_ was. I wish I only saw wavelengths instead of colors and the beauty that each hue held, holding me prisoner in their seductive embrace, like the brush of soft skin on fingertips.

I wish I didn't care, that I wasn't human and that their damned rules applied to me. But…

I knew I could never bring her to smile like that for me, no matter how hard I tried. The anger that once possessed me melted away into resignation, rest called to me as I flopped onto my bed and curled into a ball.

An echo of D's laughter floated up to me as I fell asleep, a clash of moonlit chimes in a summer breeze, reminding me of everything I was not and what I actually was: human.

I spent little time at Nexus' "never-ending" celebration since I had something else to deal with.

A's sanity.

He would stand in front of a television in the purple room, smiling with eyes glazed as he watched the death count rise and the flames of hell engulf the metal and glass cities. He would always turn to me when I found him and say, "Can't you hear them Beyond?" Then he would cock his head upwards to the land above, "They're singing, oh listen to their heavenly voices Beyond."

I knew it wouldn't help but it was the only way to get him to move, "Who's singing A?"

He would smile then and drop his voice as if someone was listening in, "The dead and Death. She wants us to come with her, Beyond." A would shake his head, "But I keep telling her that we can't, that we're trapped. But their voices are _so_ soft…I wonder how much alcohol I have to inject into my veins to see them for a while."

I would stop him them there and take him back into his room, shielding his eyes to the needles in the white room to make sure he didn't get the urge to follow through with his plan.

C spent most of his time in the kitchen, stuffing his face with anything he could get his hands on. I wouldn't doubt it if he ate all our food in a week.

Before any of this occurred, D had told me that I had a special place in her heart. And I believed her, since she was the one of the few people who I knew wouldn't lie to me. But she spent most of her time now with Nexus, dancing in the gold room together as if they were lovers.

I watched them glide on the floor once, seeing a look of absolute rapture and adoration on her face when she gazed up at Nexus as she twirled in her grey-blue dress. Nexus looked like a model fresh out of a magazine, his purple eyes alight in joy as he carried them around the room flawlessly.

They looked like a match made in heaven. The week following that day I spent my time in my room as sorrow ravaged my body, squeezing salty tears from my vermilion eyes until they were dry.

I checked A's room to see how he fared during my absence, my blood ran cold when I realized that his bed had been untouched. A layer of silver dust proved this true.

I ran downstairs to discover that plastic, often melted, body parts hung from the ceiling in every room, decorated in vulgar tattoos and cloths of every color. Everyone seemed to be in a drug-induced state, beaming up at the grotesque display of artwork, lips stretched a bit too wide for sanity.

I checked every room, but not a tell-tale lock of A's fair hair greeted me. The last room I checked was the black room, not a soul had entered the place since we had the tour all that time ago. All was normal in there and I was about to turn away when I realized that A's coffin was closed, while the rest were still open.

With a nervous heart I swung open the casket and drew back in dismay. There lay A, the slit in his throat was deep with dried ruby blood that seemed to cover his whole neck. The silk around his blonde head seemed unchanged as if the fabric had just absorbed the warm liquid that drained from his veins.

His eyes were wide and glassy as he stared up at the heavens but a wide smile still graced his lips. I wonder if he was singing with the dead right now.

I closed the casket and left the room, almost to the stairs when the clock in the black room struck three. Everything and everyone seemed to freeze as the tolls began; the sound was pleasant but melancholy, like a snippet from a funeral dirge.

My heart seemed to stop beating for a moment, as frozen by the tune as it echoed throughout all the halls.

The happy lost their smiles while the sedated came down from their highs; all had a look of fear in their faces. The last chime died away and all was well, people laughed their worries away and drifted from reality with a push of the plunger.

A knock at my door interrupted my dreamless sleep. I nearly slammed the door when I found out it was C in front of me, his thick fingers glazed in chocolate and sticky sugar syrup, a hand raised to knock once more.

"What is it?" I growled at the portly boy. He sniffed and inhaled a chocolate éclair into his mouth.

I grimaced.

"Uh…do you have a moment Beyond" I gave him a glare of death and began to close the door; his next words were faint under the éclair but caught my attention.

"D's freaking out, Beyond."

I quickly pushed past him and down the stairs to the white room, where her screams were clear over the music. D sat on a pillow next to Nexus, his face full of bliss as his eyes flickered from the poison in his blood. She held out her arms to me, once two pale pillars of beauty now grey and specked with dots of black. Her eyes were like pinwheels as she rose and took a step towards me with a crazed smile.

"She's calling out to me Beyond," I paled as she spoke clearly without tripping over a word. "D…it's me," I ran towards her and held her tight against me as she continued her voice now hysterical.

"SHE'S SINGING!" she cried, tears fogged up her grey eyes, "SHE'S CALLING OUT TO ME, BEYOND!"

"What did he give you?" I shouted at her, shaking her roughly, hoping to break her out this trance. D only hummed a song, low and sorrowful, her beautiful voice filling the room and my soul with an empty feeling.

I ran to Nexus and shook him till he opened his eyes. "Heeey, there Beyond," he slurred, eyes rolling elsewhere. I shook him once more, "Don't you _dare _close your eyes Nexus! I promise you, you're life will be Hell if you do." He only laughed and slipped back into his wonderland.

A loud laugh broke my concentration, I turned to see D slide a slim needle into one of the many holes that littered her arm. "I'm coming Madam, I'm coming to join you and your angels." She pushed the plunger and fell to the floor, the pearls in her hair shattered as the bounced off the hard surface. I scooped her up into my arms and pressed a fervent finger to her jugular where I was told everything I needed to know.

I carried her off into the black room where I placed her gently into her coffin. Her lips were still warm as I kissed her for the last time, the tears didn't start to fall until I got into my room.

My fingers itched to wrap themselves around Nexus' neck but I refrained and waited.

And waited.

Till the perfect moment presented itself to me. Nexus was oblivious to D's disappearance he only danced like a fool some more. The clock chimed hour after hour and every time the people would stop with dread in their hazy eyes.

The televisions were now just fields of white snow; the last announcement had been months ago. Nexus had declared that tonight was a night like no other, one that we shall never forget.

_Perfect_.

I donned my best suit and a raven feathered mask for the party. Everyone was smiling as the waltzed around the golden room; Nexus sprinkled golden dust on passersby like a fairy from a child's tale. The music was intoxicating, I soon found myself swaying to the beat.

A girl caught my eye, pale with locks of fire red silk, her mask a brilliant crimson as she walked towards me and pulled me onto the dance floor. Her dress was burgundy velvet and she smelled sweet like dead roses on a grave. She placed her head on my shoulder and sang with a voice as beautiful as an angel's. She wiped the tears that formed on my cheeks with a red-gloved finger and whispered, "It will all be over soon Beyond."

She kissed me on the cheek as the music stopped. Nexus stood enraged in his golden suit in front of a tall man in midnight black. He too had a red mask like my partner, on that covered his whole face and was shaped into the form of a decaying face.

Like one from the sickness.

"How dare you ruin the fun!" Nexus screamed, blue veins popping from under his skin and neck, "Get out…GET OUT NOW!" The man shrugged and walked towards the black room with Nexus close behind him.

The girl took my hand as we followed them to the room of death, people around us frozen as the clock began to chime midnight. We found Nexus standing stock still in the black room, facing the man in black.

"No…" he cried softly, "it can't be…we beat you." He trembled as the man took him into an embrace, kissing Nexus softly until he went limp. The man carried him to his coffin and placed him inside, closing the lid with a creak.

"Good job Darkness," the woman smiled at the man, "go help Decay with the others." Darkness nodded and took off his mask to expose shifting shadows where his face should have been. A scream of terror tore through my throat at I stared at my partner, her mask now gone and replaced with a face dripping with blood.

A loud thud sounded as the clock stopped. It was the sound of twenty-two bodies falling to the ground simultaneously. The woman pressed her lips onto mine, laughing as I pulled away in fear and headed to my room.

"You can't hide Beyond!" she called out. "You can't hide from Death, Darkness and Decay!"

I ran past the lifeless bodies on the ground and the two men who were already carrying the dead to their coffins, the smell of rot thick in the air as I made it to the first floor. I locked my door and sat in the darkness while my limbs began to weaken and body shake.

I hope that they were right…that the dead were singing up above.

_With a sigh, you put the papers down on the bed, your fingers still shaking in fear. _

_Was all that true? Did that actually happen all those years ago? You took the stack of papers with you as you headed downstairs, ready to show Hazel your amazing find. Your central piston pumped harder as your recognized each room from the tale, stepping over shattered syringes and broken masks._

_A giggle from the orange room caught your attention, you headed over there as the sound repeats again. It was Hazel's laugh._

_You watched from the crack in the door as Brax held Hazel tight in his arms, metallic fingers searching as he peeled away her plastic suit._

"_Stop it," she hissed playfully as she undid Brax's uniform, "what if Tanner comes in?"_

_Brax scoffed as he pushed Hazel into a wall, unraveling his connection wires hidden in his groin, "You really care about that quiet one huh?" Hazel shrugged and hooked up Brax's wires, one by one, to her connection port in between her legs._

"_I-ah- believe he is a nice model and…" she paused as her eyes flicked in ecstasy as their systems fused into one, the voice that came from her lips was a mix of her's and Brax's, "he seems different."_

"_Maybe because he _is_, Hazel," Brax wrapped his arms around her tighter as they fell to the floor, "everyone that had his model is messed in the head. That's why they stopped production so fast…and made me." They laughed as their sensors shut down and they fell into bliss. _

_You walked into the room, oil leaked from your eye sockets as you stare at them twisted into each other like snakes. You thought Hazel cared for you, truly, that she would want to spend the rest of electrical life with you._

_But you saw it was all a ploy, that it was pity instead of attraction. You walked into the black room to see all the coffins closed, but you didn't care about that. You strode to the second one in line and opened it up, pleased to see the withered body inside the blackened box._

_The body was light as you snapped the neck, slipping the skull into your knapsack. You hammed a song as you locked the black room so that no one could ever enter it. You left the rooms and started the trek back up to the surface. _

_Technology is great and is leaping forward in great strides. With a click of button, scientists have awoken the DNA of organisms that died millennia ago. They brought back to life trees, birds, even dinosaurs. But not humans, since their DNA was too degraded to use. _

_Until now. _

_It was reasoned that the human brain could be used to see into their memories and how they lived at a time in history. They also thought it could be used to clone a fully fledged human._

_You smiled when you thought of your trophy in your bag, soon to become your new best friend._


End file.
